ESTIF anniversary: 10 years of strengthening the solar heating and cooling sector

Dear Solarthermalworld.org reader,

The European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF) celebrated its ten-year anniversary with around 70 guests in Brussels, Belgium, at the end of November. The organisers of the event remembered the ESTIF founders presented them with the first pieces of the anniversary cake. The former and newly elected President, Robin Welling, also lauded the milestones of the young organisation. ESTIF has achieved great success in bringing solar heating and cooling on the agenda of the European Commission. It is now a good sign for ESTIF’s future that a member of the German heating association BDH was elected to the ESTIF board the day after the celebration.

The Polish population is becoming more and more interested in combi solar thermal systems: the share of residential combi systems for hot water and space heating which are subsidised by the grant scheme of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, NFOŚiGW, increased from 13% at the beginning of this year to 18% in October. The growth in absolute numbers was even more impressive. Whereas only 100 combi systems were installed in January, there were 377 - or more than three times as many - new installations in October, according to NFOŚiGW data. The total number of subsidised residential systems between January and October 2012 was 16,830, of which 16% were combi systems (2,730 systems).

Turkish collector and tank manufacturer Ezinç Metal San supplied, installed and commissioned more than 11,000 of these systems. Another 1,355 systems came from solar thermal system producer Ouraset, while several other suppliers delivered and set up the remaining installations. "We are deeply saddened by this great human tragedy. We have put a lot effort into improving the quality of life of the survivors in the shortest time possible, in order to contribute to the normalisation of life in the city,” Hakan Alas, General Manager of Ezinç, says. The project was initiated by the Housing Development Administration TOKI that required uncommonly quality standards for the domestic Turkish market: in addition to the local TSE certification, the collectors are closed-loop pressurised systems, which include highly selective copper absorbers and enamelled tanks, and have a Solar Keymark certification.

The solar thermal market in Serbia has grown noticeably over the last two years. Most solar thermal projects are realised in the public sector, in which installations have been subsidised for a few years now. Solarthermalworld.org spoke with Miroslav Lambic, Chairman of the Serbian Solar Association Srbija Solar, about the market situation and the industry. The association estimates that more than 8,000 m2 of solar collector area have been installed in Serbia over the last five years. Lambic supervised the drafting of a 300-page study on the Serbian solar thermal market called “Solar Atlas”. The study was published in Serbian in September 2011.

An excellent campus, a highly motivated group of professionals and an abundantly sunny country: Martin Schnauss is very satisfied with his Costa Rican training course, which took place in the middle of November at the international campus of the Earth University, a two-hour drive from the country’s capital, San José. Together with his colleague Katie Brown, Schnauss held the one-week training course about solar heating and cooling technology in cooperation with the German Renewables Academy AG (RENAC). The workshop addressed trainers and professionals from Costa Rica, as well as from the neighbouring countries of Honduras, Mexico and Guatemala.

Despite a good start, 2012 has not seen any upturn in the German solar thermal industry, as latest figures show. Carsten Kuhlmann from the heating manufacturers association BDH expects a newly installed collector area of 1.2 million m², which would be 5% less than in 2011. The number was part of Kuhlmann’s presentation at the Forum Solarpraxis, a conference in Berlin, Germany, at which scientists, associations and industry representatives discussed the future of solar heating and cooling at the end of November. The decline in the sales of solar thermal systems is not a result of low sales in the German heating sector in general, as Kuhlmann points out. The overall sales figure for new heating systems in Germany has increased by 6% between 2011 and 2012.